As with all areas of medicine, radiology departments and clinics face pressure to decrease costs, improve patient outcomes and satisfaction, and improve efficiency. Radiology Information Systems (RIS), when integrated with Electronic Health Records (EHR), automate and streamline the workflow involved in radiology practices.

The development of electronic health record technology has made accessing patient information easier than ever for both the patient and physician when they need it most. Electronic health record systems promote the efficiency of the organization, transmission, and storage of Protected Health Information in medical facilities. These systems are developed and networked in a fashion to integrate healthcare professionals with large databases of information that act as a major resource in treating patients in medical facilities. Although unique patient identifiers are used in patients’ records to enhance the effectiveness of privacy, security, and confidentiality techniques, the level of “inimitability” is still to be established and incorporated into universal standards in e-health protocols. When patients feel as though their safety or privacy is at risk they are less likely to share pertinent information to assist the diagnosis and treatment of their symptoms. Some of the issues and privacy concerns that are associated with EHR technology influence the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Conflicting regulatory framework Techniques used to access PHI Unauthorized sharing of PHI Unencrypted data and weak security measures Interoperability failure/breach of protocol According to the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, while electronic health record technology has made a fair amount of contributions to healthcare IT protocols, work needs to be done to maintain complete safety and privacy of records both during and after use. Electronic health record programs often contain security measures and encryption technologies that are intended to thoroughly safeguard sensitive information, even when it is not being used. However, the techniques that each medical facility uses to implement the standards outlined by HIPAA all vary in strength, uniqueness, and effectiveness. We at ADSC, use the most up-to-date standards of security on all our products and services. We are constantly updating our software to meet the latest industry standards! Contact us at 800-899-4237 to schedule a personalized overview of any of our software solutions. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Guest Post by Katie Matlack, Medical Market Analyst, Software Advice You want irony? Try this: the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that we women are the ones make the health care choices for the kids in 8 out of 10 families. Yet women are far and away the minority gender in the world of health IT leaders. Health IT is one of the most important segments of health care, during a time of great change. If women are the ones who’ll be where the rubber hits the road when it comes to the future of health, why aren’t more of us, more involved, in determining what that future of health looks like? While this is by no means the definitive list, I’ve done some research on the women who ARE making their mark in HIT. I list five to know below. They’ve been included both for their individual accomplishments and for the attention I think that’s due in the areas of health IT where they’re active. Regina Holliday - The Patient Advocate Regina uses art to lobby for attention to be paid to patients; she became a patient advocate after witnessing her late husband’s struggle to receive appropriate care for kidney cancer. She paints at big-time medical conventions, reminding attendees that Meaningful Use (MU) requirements of new electronic medical records programs--oft discussed today in the context of government payouts--were created with the intent to improve patient care and save lives. And she reminds us that electronic health records (EHRs) should be clear and transparent. Why does an artist get top billing in a piece on information technology? Because her point--the that the goal of the technology is to make it easier for people to be and stay well--is, well, pretty important. Judith Faulkner - The Veteran More than three decades ago Judith Faulkner started a small company, Epic, that has today grown into the provider of the EHR software for most of the largest hospitals in the US. Epic is also the system used by Kaiser Permanente, the biggest care provider in the country that’s not an arm of the government. And it’s in the running to be the solution used by the Veteran’s Administration (VA). Given that Faulkner is staunchly against an effort to have all EHRs move towards becoming interoperable with one another, this last fact has some folks mighty alarmed. Faulkner is still involved in any major company decision and drives the company’s unique corporate culture, and she’s got a seat on President Obama’s Health IT Policy Committee that’ll be making recommendations on “development and adoption of a nationwide health information infrastructure, including standards for the exchange of patient medical information.” Susannah Fox - The Researcher She’s responsible for studying what goes on at the crossroads of technology, health and the interwebs, as the Researcher on Health and Health Care for the Pew Internet Project. So Susannah Fox brings us some mighty interesting data about the habits of Americans when it comes to how many of us look online for health information (59 percent), what specific kinds of health information we seek (specific diseases or conditions, treatments or procedures, and doctors or other health professionals), and who we seek it from (increasingly, from other people who might have conditions similar to ours). Fox blogs regularly on e-Patients.net [http://e-patients.net/] and is helping researchers understand the habits of patients so that health IT can better meet those needs. Halle Tecco - The Connecter The company she co-founded has yet to celebrate its second birthday. Yet Tecco’s Rock Health --an accelerator “powering the future of the digital health ecosystem” by providing capital and mentorship to health startups--has funding from giants like Microsoft and Quest Diagnostics, and two of its “graduates” have secured additional funding from other investors. Tecco was chosen because of the power of her idea: that innovators could put tools and systems out there that could rejuvenate healthcare, make it not “just okay” but make it really rock. She was also chosen because she shows you don’t need to have gone to medical school to make a big impact in medicine: Tecco’s background is in tech and business. Amy Sheng - The Inventor Sheng also co-created CellScope, Inc., with Erik Douglas, less than two years ago. CellScope uses optical attachments to transform smartphones into diagnostic-quality imaging systems. In the right hands, this technology has the potential to transform lives: in the developing world it can be used in village clinics, while here in the US consumers can use the CellScope to access expert diagnosis and advice. Sheng’s work demonstrates the great potential for telehealth solutions to break down the barriers separating developing countries from high quality health care. Have I left anyone important off the list? Please email me at katie@softwareadvice.com with your suggestions and feedback. I sincerely appreciate it! Katie Matlack is the Medical Analyst for Software Advice, a company where she blogs regularly about health IT and electronic health records. You can read the original article this version is based on here.

Physicians used to keep patients’ medical records on paper, necessary because today’s ailment can be a function of a prior condition. To get an accurate picture of the current situation, the doctor must know the patient’s medical history. This requires the doctor to spend hours recording current situations and comparing them to the patient’s medical history. With time, patient records often become cumbersome, containing pages of reports, charts, diagnoses, drug histories and allergies – literally everything that could account for the person’s current health status. Records required a lot of space. They required personnel, someone to manage and keep them in order, to retrieve and return. Paper records are perishable, ink dries out, paper tears and crumbles and they can get lost or misplaced. And imagine the difficulty which can arise when paper records are transferred to a practice on a different street or continent! Computers changed all that. With their speed, efficiency, compactness, limitless memory and storage capacity, electronic medical records (EMR) software, also known as electronic health records (EHR) software, have made a huge impact on medical office management. With the advent of computers and the software that powered them, doctors can examine a patient and have the entire medical history at their fingertips. The combination of desktops, laptops, notebooks, iPads, tablets and mobile phones brings the record storage archive into the examination room. Like other software solutions, the electronic medical records software industry has become specialized. EMR/EHR systems are available now for specific specialties and subspecialties, and are available either where the physician accesses the program online, or on a computer which the practice owns. In addition to all of the advantages of a software-based system, as opposed to traditional paper records, a principal advantage of the latter is its updated compatibility with the requirements of government regulations and those of the individual insurance providers. Another big advantage today are government grants for practices which adopt approved EMR/EHR systems. More about that next time. Learn More For more information about Electronic Medical Records or Stimulus Act compliance, simply complete our Information Request Form or call 1-800-899-4237.